Page 64 of Seducing the Marquess (Lords and Ladies in Love 1)

“My lady?” His startled voice carried down the corridor, until she closed the door behind her. She went directly to Devon’s desk and opened the middle drawer on the right hand side. She withdrew a metal box and lifted the lid, removing numerous bills and coins.

“Please have a footman bring down the trunks Sally is packing.” Without a flicker in his direction, Eugenia swept by the butler and made her way back upstairs.

Sally was frantic, folding clothes. “My lady, it will take hours to pack up everything.”

Eugenia stopped and tapped her lips. “You are correct. Pack enough for a few days, and have someone else finish and send everything on.”

Too restless to sit calmly, Eugenia began to assist Sally. If her maid was surprised by all the activity, she said nothing. As she folded garments and placed them into a trunk, she thought on all she had done the past few weeks.

She allowed the anger to wash over her once again. She would use the anger to sustain her and allow herself a good cry when she arrived at Devonshire. She was through with London. Unless Devon dragged her back kicking and screaming, she would never return to the bloody place. If she were in favor with the gods, the last time they’d made love she had conceived. Then, if the child were a boy, she would no longer need to suffer Devon’s visits to her bed, either.

Her life would be full. She would start a sewing circle or whatever it was that women did in the country. Perhaps she would have Cook teach her how to prepare meals.

A garden!

She would grow a garden. Beautiful flowers and herbs. A great deal of herbs. She would make medicinal teas and distribute them to the tenants, wearing a straw bonnet and carrying a basket. Everyone would love her.

Oh yes, life would be fulfilling and enjoyable. She would get a cat. Several of them. Enough to fill the house. She pushed down the hysterical giggle that threatened to erupt any minute. She could hardly wait for her new life to begin, because she was finished with this one.

“Sally, I am ready to leave. Please cease.” Eugenia walked over to the dressing table and swept her arm across the top, knocking all the perfume bottles to the floor, several of them smashing against the fireplace bricks. She gained immense pleasure from the sound of all that glass breaking and the scent of various perfumes wafting in the air.

She would never wear perfume again, either.

…

Devon grabbed Isabella’s hands, removed them from his neck, and pulled back. She eyed him with puzzlement.

“I am sorry. But I’m afraid this won’t work.” He backed up, wondering just what the hell he was doing. He didn’t want this woman. The only woman he wanted was Eugenia. And, dammit to hell, he would have her.

Cahill viewed him with raised eyebrows. “Not to your taste, Devon?”

Devon shook his head. “No.” He turned to the woman again. “You are quite lovely, but I am afraid I am deeply and wholly in love with my wife, so no other woman will do.”

Instead of the anger or hurt of rejection he thought to see in her eyes, she smiled. “She is a very fortunate woman, my lord. Go home to her.”

As if the devil himself chased him, he raced down the stairs to his carriage. “Home,” he shouted as he slammed the door shut.

I love her.

It was plain and simple. Even the thought of her lover didn’t discourage him now. He would go home and tell her that whoever this man was who had taught her all these new things would be a dead man if he touched her again. She belonged to him. And he to her. If that went against everything he believed, well, it was time for a change.

They would retire to Devonshire. He would make love to her day and night until she could no longer walk. Then he would carry her everywhere. His heart beating in rhythm with the clop of the horses’ hooves, he imagined sweeping her up from her bed and carrying her to his bed. Where they would make love. Then sleep the entire night together. Forever.

The carriage barely came to a stop when he had the door open and was bounding up the stairs. He raced past a startled Bellows who summoned him back. “My lord.”

Devon continued up the stairs. “I have no time right now.” He reached the door to her room and flung it open. And stopped dead.

She was gone. Not just her, but all her things. Except for a pile of broken bottles lying on the floor next to her dressing table and in the fireplace. The stench of the various perfumes flooded the room.

Eugenia was gone?

His heart still pounding from the race home, he tried to come to grips with her absence and what it meant. He walked slowly around the space, his eye catching something lying in the fireplace. It appeared to be a journal or a book. He bent and picked it up, tossing it on the bed. The book opened and he stared at the page, his jaw dropping.

With shaky hands he picked it up and flipped through the pages. Eugenia’s perfectly scripted handwriting appeared in the margins. His eyes widened when he saw his name, along with notes. All the breath left his body. He stumbled backward and sat on the bed.

This was where she was getting her scandalous ideas. She had no lover! Good Lord, she’d been trying to seduce him! His grin was quickly replaced with a frown. Based on her departure, she must have overheard him and Cahill talking when he’d thought she was in the ladies’ retiring room.

What an ass he was. And what a mess he’d created.